Social Media Influence

Social influence is determined by a combination of factors. There are different sites that measure social influence. Although widely used by the marketers, these tools are not always 100% accurate. When a score is based on a formula, sometimes things do murk up. That’s just life.

When it comes to Klout score, Twitter and Facebook carry the most weight. It’s not clear how much importance is placed on LinkedIn and Foursquare, but Google+ evidently matters. Also, there appears to be a connection between the number of +K’s earned and high Klout scores.

Kred measures someone based on their Twitter and Facebook activity. You can easily pull up how they measure and what gets what points. Kred measures you on two things – Influence and Outreach. Your Influence score scores you out of 1,000 and your Outreach scores you out of 12.

PeerIndex is another site that scores you on your social media. It’s very similar to Klout and Kred. It’s respected and some of the big boys (i.e. Forbes) uses this as a part of their determining factors for lists.

Now two startups, Tellagence and Little Bird say that they also help businesses zero in on social influencers, but in a more targeted way. These services identify people who are most likely to take active steps to influence consumers.

Learning how to increase your potential to influence can actually become helpful if you have a role to play with your community, brand, or cause. Here are some essential tips on increasing your influence:

1. Stay active on all your social networks. Most social media measurement tools measure your daily activity across different social platforms. By increasing your activity, you will surely raise your influence score.

2. Build your community and increase your reach. Expand your online network. Add friends. Be consistent and memorable with your visual online presence. This will help you to gain more followers. Increase the likes and shares of your posts. When it comes to measuring social media influence, it’s all about the numbers.

3. Develop authority. Are you knowledgeable in your topic? Show thought leadership. Post relevant content. Focus on a topic.

4. Be consistent. How often do you post interesting content that others would want to share? Make sure you stick to a posting schedule, and try to blog as frequently as possible.

5. Be engaging and generous. Invest your time in members of your community. Reciprocate and engage in conversation. Comment on other blogs. Be helpful. Give recommendations and others will recommend you back. Share your knowledge and experience, and you will be rewarded.